Brain Storm Read online

  There were only two research facilities in the area.

  One in upstate New York, the other in New Jersey.

  But he needed to be certain.

  He used his computer to gain access to PlattDeutsche's vast database...and was instantly surprised at the complexity of the company's antitam-pering safeguards. Every time he tried to delve into the research material concerned with the Dynamic Interface System, he was rebuffed. Smith had little time to waste cracking the code. He couldn't even find a listing of Lothar Holz as vice president in charge of the operation. The entire R&D wing of PlattDeutsche seemed impossible to access.

  And then it struck him. Lothar Holz. Vice president in charge of research and development.

  Remembering the file he had created the previous day, he called up any information the computers had culled from a variety of media outlets. And there it was. An interview in a local New Jersey paper.

  Glowing praise for Lothar Holz, rising star at PlattDeutsche. The computer offered a grainy newspaper photo of Holz donating a check to a local community center.

  It was only then that Smith remembered. The van that had brought Holz to Smith's home had sported New Jersey license plates. They had taken Remo to their facility in Edison, New Jersey.

  He stood.

  "Master of Sinanju, Remo is in New Jersey."

  Chiun didn't seem convinced. He held a slender index finger to his lips. He cocked a leathery ear toward the door. When he seemed at last convinced of some invisible certainty, he tucked his hands back inside his sleeves.

  "That is where your machine tells you we will find my son?"

  "That is correct."

  "Then it is time to have it hauled over."

  Smith frowned. "Overhauled? Why?"

  "Because Remo is here."

  And his voice was fraught with foreboding.

  He would have felt more comfortable if Dr. Newton had come along. Or Mervin Fischer. But Mr.

  Holz had sent Ron Stern out in the interface van on a specific mission. A mission that he could not entrust to the others.

  That Lothar Holz could trust Ron Stern to follow his orders to the letter was a certainty. Trust was the very foundation of their relationship.

  Stern was a brilliant programmer who had come to computers late in life. He was nearly forty years old, but in spite of his advanced years—in terms of the computer field—Stern had worked alongside Fischer developing the earliest translation programs for the Dynamic Interface System.

  His age made him a sort of father figure to the rest of the men on the programming team, including the real genius, Mervin Fischer.

  But Stern and Fischer were polar opposites. Stern was boisterous and outspoken. He was an avowed sportsman and quite athletic. He watched his diet more carefully than anyone else at the Edison complex. Even when the rest of the boys were eating their fast-food burgers and pizzas, Stern always ate nothing heavier than a salad. No dressing. Stern also had one minor peccadillo that the others didn't know about. He was somewhat more aggressive when it came to the fairer sex than his friend Mervin. He was just more persuasive, and though some people had called it rape, Ron Stern knew that term was far too strong.

  Unfortunately for the computer programmer, the authorities didn't think the term was strong enough when applied to Ron Stern.

  His world had begun to cave in shortly after an incident concerning a PlattDeutsche executive secretary.

  Luckily for Stern, when his darkest hour had been upon him he had found an ally in the R&D vice president. Holz put the entire muscle of the legal-affairs division into defending the "poor innocent man." The prosecution crumbled. In less time than it took to bring the charges, Ron Stern was a free man. And Lothar Holz had the programmer in his back pocket. After that, the lines between right and wrong further blurred to Ron Stern as Holz, his sav-ior in his most desperate time of need, used him to deal with any niggling extralegal thing that came up.

  Unbeknownst to Stern, most of these problems were manufactured, in a deliberate manipulation to train him to unquestioning obedience and make him feel more and more indebted to his boss.

  And it had worked. Stern didn't question the motives of Mr. Holz when he was given his special instructions to return to the sanitarium in Rye with his

  "special cargo."

  The others who had been sent along with him wouldn't be a problem. They had all had similar help at one time or another from Lothar Holz. The only thing that really worried Stern were the computers.

  He hoped they were up to the challenge.

  They had parked outside the high walls of the sanitarium. One of the men had scrambled up to the roof and attached the rotating transmitter array to the coupling behind the cab. The curved black mesh looked like some kind of miniature Pentagon missile tracker.

  It would boost the signal so that they wouldn't have to enter the grounds of the sanitarium.

  Ordinarily this wouldn't be necessary. The wide beam of the system was usually all it took. And the machines themselves were preprogrammed to handle hundreds of ordinary people automatically. It was virtually idiot proof. But this was a special case.

  They needed all the focus they could get just to hold on to one man. And Stern had permission to access the satellite if it became necessary.

  In the rear of the van, three technicians operated the motion-coordinating terminals. Stern and two others worked the keyboards on the other side of the truck.

  It was a go. Stern saw two people in the same rear office they had isolated earlier in the day. The thermal sensors outlined the men in red.

  "One of them is that guy from the bank. We still can't get a lock on him."

  "Doesn't matter," Stern said. "Mr. Holz wants them both dead."

  He watched as another lone figure, also outlined in red, moved swiftly through the corridors of the administration building. And as the men behind him typed madly away, the spectral shape drew closer to the rear office.

  They would have expected him to come in through the window. Or to explode in through the office door.

  Maybe to ambush them in the parking lot. What they wouldn't have expected was for Remo to saunter in through the doorway as if nothing was wrong. So that was exactly what they had programmed him to do. "Hi, Smith. Hi, Chiun. How's it going?"

  "Remo?" Smith asked, confused. Chiun raised a warning hand. "Do not trust your senses, Emperor."

  "What's that supposed to mean?" Remo aske< His face scrunched up in a flawless computer creation of puzzlement.

  "Come no closer."

  "What? I waste half the night escaping from those goons you turned me over to and that's the welcome I get? Thanks a lot."

  His words sounded sincere, but Chiun could see the look of anguish deep within his pupil's eyes.

  knew that Remo still didn't control his own actions.

  Smith looked at him, his staid features puzzled.

  He opened his mouth to ask for some enlightenment.

  Unexpectedly, Remo sprang toward Chiun. His feet and hands lashed out like a manic windmill. The movements were much more fluid than they had been earlier in the day. Whoever controlled Remo had obviously been practicing.

  Chiun blocked the arm blows with his forearms.

  In the move Remo used, the arms were not the primary means of assault. They were meant only as a distraction to the target. The real killing blows were focused in the legs.

  Chiun dared not attempt to stop Remo's legs. Jje leaped up and over them, his skirts billowing as he landed to Remo's right.

  The next attack was instantaneous, as if Remo had anticipated Chiun's first move. He whirled and struck out with the heel of his hand. Another millisecond, and he would have shattered the Master of Sinanju's windpipe.

  Chiun no longer stood beside Remo. He was behind, then above him as his spindly legs flashed out, knocking Remo off balance. The instant Remo struck the carpet, Chiun was on him, his tapered fingers searching out the spot at the base of Remo's skull that would pa
ralyze him.

  When he was satisfied that Remo could no longer move, Chiun stood.

  Amazingly Remo flipped over, thrashing out at Chiun once more. Chiun was stunned. This should not have been possible. Whatever this outside influence was that tampered with Remo's mind, they had no idea what their ham-fisted tinkering could do.

  They might irreparably damage Remo's delicate nervous system if they continued to override his body's instincts for preservation.

  "Fiends," Chiun hissed, dodging Remo's lightning-fast hands.

  Again he knocked Remo down and again he

  placed pressure on the top of the spine. On the floor, Remo grew rigid.

  "Come here, Smith," Chiun said, beckoning to the CURE director.

  Harold Smith stepped uncertainly from behind his desk and crossed over to the Master of Sinanju.

  "Here." Chiun grabbed Smith by the wrist and pulled him down to Remo's prone form. "Place your fingers here, at the top of his spine." Smith did as he was instructed. Chiun rose, leaving Smith squatting on the floor beside Remo.

  "What now?" Smith asked.

  Heading for the door, Chiun called back over his shoulder, "Do not waver for an instant, or I fear Remo will kill you."

  "Where are you going?"

  "The vehicle that poisons Remo's mind is near."

  "But you said the van was not here."

  "It was not. Now it is. And in a moment, it will be no more."

  And leaving Smith crouching uncomfortably on the office floor beside Remo, Chiun slipped out the door.

  "Where did the little guy go?" Stern demanded in the van.

  The man beside him shrugged. "One minute the heat sensors had him, and the next minute he was gone. It was like he turned off his body heat."

  "Maybe our guy killed him."

  "And his body temperature switched off the minute he died? Not very bloody likely. He must've found a way to shield himself from the thermal sensors."

  "Can't you use the interface signal to find him?"

  The man smirked. "We can only focus the signal, Ron. And we need a target to focus it on."

  "Can we use the satellite link to Edison? Maybe we can use the extra boost to widen the search area."

  "We'd be searching for a ghost."

  "Right, right," Stern said, shaking his head at the foolishness of his own question. He didn't like this.

  He was only a programmer. He shouldn't be in charge here. "Why haven't you gotten control of our guy yet?" Stern demanded of the row of hackers on the other side of the van.

  "We've been locked out of the system," one of them complained.

  "Manual override," said a second.

  "Yeah," the first one agreed, nodding. "Manual override."

  "This never happens when I play Riven," the first opined.

  The man beside Ron Stern gave up tapping at his keyboard. Their operative wasn't responding to the, interface lock, the other man in the office couldn't be controlled and the third—who might be somewhat controllable—had vanished. He crossed his arms and looked up at the leader of this expedition. "So, what do we do now, Ron?" he asked sarcastically, folding his arms across his chest.

  His question was answered by a horrible wrenching of metal. The van rocked on its shocks.

  "What the hell was that?" Stern demanded, grabbing at the wall-mounted table behind him for support.

  "I just lost the interface signal."

  Though they couldn't see out of the windowless back of the van, they heard something clatter to the ground outside.

  "That's the booster," a technician said.

  "We can't access the satellite," Stern said under his breath.

  "Can you get a thermal reading now?" he demanded. "Someone on the roof?"

  The man beside him clucked unhappily. "I'm getting something, but it's very faint...."

  All at once, the rear door of the van was ripped from its hinges. The cab of the truck was lifted into the air by the incredible force exerted on the back door. The front tires remained several feet off the ground for a moment as the large white vehicle resembled nothing less than a wild animal rearing up on its hind legs.

  The other five men in the back grabbed urgently at whatever they could, desperate to keep from fall-ing through the open maw, but Ron Stern, who was still standing between them all, was tossed out the open door. He vanished into the night.

  There was a painful screeching of protesting metal as the truck began to teeter in place. And then it fell.

  But even as the van crashed back to its four tires, bouncing wildly on its shocks, Ron Stern bounced back in through the door. At least part of him did.

  Specifically, the part that had controlled the higher functions of the man who had been Ron Stern.

  The head thudded against the closed door that led into the cab, then it came to a rolling stop at the feet of one of the computer operators.

  The man instantly passed out.

  Before the full impact of what had just occurred even registered in the minds of the others, the Master of Sinanju whirled into the cramped interior of the van. The pudgy, pale faces of the two hackers still at their workstations grew shocked at the sight of the tiny Asian. On the computer screen, people were ab-stract. But here, in person, was one of the men they had been sent to kill. To them, he existed as a shadow in the strange electronic netherworld of bytes and binary.

  They didn't have time to reconcile their computer-generated perceptions with reality.

  Like an angry hissing typhoon, Chiun fell upon the two men. His movements duplicated those they had made Remo perform. But here, the execution was flawless.

  Two palms flashed out, their long-nailed fingers folded neatly over like talons of some vicious bird of prey. Two windpipes collapsed beneath the pressure. The men dropped from their stools, joining their unconscious comrade and the head of Ron Stern on the floor. Chiun's foot lashed out in two neat jabs.

  A pair of holes erupted in their temples.

  Chiun wheeled on the other two men. They remained in their seats, paralyzed with fear. Chiun's eyes narrowed as he saw on one of the screens the ghostly image of Smith bent over Remo.

  "You will break the beam device that manipulates my son."

  "It's severed," one of the men insisted. "You broke the signal when you derailed the satellite dish."

  "The thing on the roof?"

  "Yes. Yes, sir," they chorused obligingly, hoping that maybe there was still some chance to get out of this. "That is what I thought," said Chiun. And grabbing the men by the scruffs of the neck, he steered their heads into their computer screens. A pair of muffled pops and a few sparks followed. The men didn't move again.

  Chiun found the unconscious computer programmer and dragged the man out the rear of the vehicle.

  The evening was unseasonably warm. A faint breeze carried the scent of salt water in the air.

  Chiun propped the man up against the side of the van and slapped him sharply across his blotchy white cheek. Immediately the young man's eyes sprang open.

  "What? Where am...?" His words trailed off as he spied the blood on his shirt. All at once, he remembered the head of Ron Stern rolling around on the floor of the van. "Oooh..." He began to pass out once again, but the Master of Sinanju struck him roughly across the cheek, back and forth.

  The pain revived him. He sucked in a deep lungful of air.

  "Remain alert, fat one," Chiun snapped, "for though I would remove you now, my employer doubtless has need for you." And with that, he dragged the whimpering young man back toward the gates of Folcroft.

  "You may release Remo, O Emperor. He is once more only a threat to himself." The Master of Sinanju swept into the room, propelling the computer programmer before him. The young man glanced around, frightened. To him, this was all still a giant video game. This office was as unreal to him as a Pac-Man maze.

  Smith had grown weary squatting for so long. He had dared not move a muscle. He rose stiffly from the floor, releasing the pressure on R
emo's spine.

  "Thanks a heap," Remo complained. He tried to climb to his feet, but found that he could barely control his legs. Smith helped him up.

  "Why didn't you just hold me down there all night?" Remo griped, rubbing the back of his neck at the remembered sensation of the interface signal.

  "You might have killed me," Smith responded blandly.

  "Yeah, and I still might. You're the one who handed me over to them, remember?" Disgusted, Remo wobbled away from Harold Smith.

  Smith ignored Remo. "Who is this person?" he asked Chiun.

  "Hey, Chiun, that's one of them," Remo said.

  "Hey, Chiun, that's one of them," Chiun repeated, in a mocking singsong. "I risk my life to rescue you from their evil clutches, and all you are able to do is state the obvious." To Smith, he said,

  "I have allowed this one to live so that you might question him, Emperor."

  "I'm not certain I approve of doing this here,"

  Smith said.

  "It's the middle of the night, Smitty," Remo sighed. "Even the cleaning staff went home hours ago." He leaned back against Smith's desk, rubbing his neck, still trying to shake off the residual effects of the interface signal. It took much more of an effort of will for him to stand than he wanted the others to know.

  Smith nodded his tense agreement. "Of course, you are correct. Chiun."

  At a nod from Smith, the Master of Sinanju lifted the heavyset programmer into the air and tossed him back onto the worn office sofa.

  The couch creaked in protest.

  "You will answer my questions," Smith said to the man.

  The programmer swallowed hard. He nodded.

  "I am having difficulty accessing the PlattDeutsche computers."

  The young man watched Smith, wide-eyed. He nodded nervously. His double chin wobbled. "You tried to access a dummy system. We set it up for corporate spies. People waste hours and hours trying to access files that don't even exist."

  Smith furrowed his brow. "It's all a ruse?"

  "Everything that's public knowledge is buried in the modem-access system. That way, when someone finds something they think they're on the right track.